


A Restroom Reassurance

by anoccasionalcigarette



Series: Eavesdropping [2]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Eavesdropping, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:47:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28851561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anoccasionalcigarette/pseuds/anoccasionalcigarette
Summary: Even the best of them can't hold it together every minute of every day. A quick escape and a transfer of strength in an unlikely place - and unintentionally intruding on a coworker's break.Morgan's gonna have to find a new hideaway.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid
Series: Eavesdropping [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2029465
Comments: 11
Kudos: 209





	A Restroom Reassurance

Morgan felt confident he had earned this break. He had checked in with everyone he needed to, returned his messages from LEOs about ongoing cases, and was ahead on his paperwork - even without slipping any to Reid. So it was without any guilt that he pulled his phone, cue'd up the weekend's sports highlights, and made himself comfortable on the best seat the 4th floor men's bathroom had to offer.

He was on the fourth floor because they had been doing renovations and the offices that used to be down here were reassigned for the time being. The construction crew had finished the bathrooms first which meant the brand new, never used, rarely supervised space was free for the taking. Morgan smiled to himself, thankful that a few weeks ago while hiding from a vengeful Garcia he had stumbled upon the FBI building's best kept secret.

After taking care of business he lingered for a bit, swiping through scores and returning texts from some ladies he had met over the weekend. He was in no rush to get back to his desk which was likely to have accrued more paperwork while he wasn't watching. God he hated that part of the job.

Just as he went to exit the stall he heard the door open. Damn. Morgan backed into his stall, the very last one for maximum space and privacy. He waited to see what the newcomer would do. There was no reason to be hiding but his ideal exit strategy did not include exchanging pleasantries. He waited to hear the sound of a stall door closing before opening his own.

That sound never came. Morgan was trapped in limbo. It was too late to leave now, wasn't it? He could flush again, he supposed, to disguise the fact that he had waited so long to exit and make it seem more natural. 

There was a chance he was over thinking this.

Confused by the silence and wondering if anyone had even entered he risked a peek through the crack between the door and the latch. He moved slowly to avoid his movement being seen in the mirror. To be caught peeking through a crack in the men's room would make all of this exponentially more awkward.

He needn't be so cautious. The intruder stood with his back to Morgan's hideout, one hand covering his face the other on the counter as he leaned on it for support. He huffed out a breath before running the water, dipping both his hands and then wiping them across his face and into short dark hair. Morgan was frozen as he witnessed Hotch like he'd never seen him before. 

Instinct kicked in and he retreated within the stall, remaining as silent as possible. This was absolutely not a moment he wanted to intrude on. Damn Hotch for knowing about the secret bathroom. He thought back over the morning trying to remember anything that may have set this in motion. The man was clearly in distress and it had to be something serious to warrant this kind of reaction from an otherwise stoic and private man. Someone who embodied the phrase 'suffer in silence'. 

At that thought, Morgan checked to make sure his phone was on silent. The last thing he needed was for his phone to start blasting "Sexy Back" if Garcia started sending him her usual midday love notes. He'd change the text tone but his babygirl always managed to find out and change it to something even more embarrassing. He glanced at the clock. He really should be getting back from his break but who knew how long he'd be stuck in here? At least the man who would be on his case for being late was clearly preoccupied just a few feet away.

The door opened again but Morgan knew it was someone entering as he didn't hear Hotch move at all. Though he couldn't see the newcomer he could sense their silent conversation. A slide of fabric against the counter as the guest leaned against it. The shuffling of arms as they folded across someone's chest. Hotch's sigh as he realize he wasn't going to be able to hide. A more intrusive sound - a squeak of rubber against the tile floor - cut through the silence as the interrogator turned his body out, the heels of his shoes on the floor squeaking with resistance.

Morgan waited for one of them to speak, expecting it to be the stranger. It was likely Rossi, the only of the team who was comfortable enough to force Hotch to face the more emotional facets of the job when needed. Instead it was Hotch who started, his voice sounding miles away as he barely managed to get past an emotion Morgan had never seen in his boss.

"I just-" His voice was so small and Morgan could feel how worn down the man felt. It shook him to his core to hear Hotch like this and he couldn't even see the man. He doubted he was shedding tears but he'd be surprised if he didn't at least have wet eyes. What makes a man who doesn't blink cry?

"I'm so tired." 

Morgan could give him that. It had been a hard few weeks. They were back to back on cases that were long shots from the outset. Their last case in particular involving children. A lot of children. Hotch however had seemed fine considering. If he was a bit grumpier and snapped a bit quicker towards the end of the case the team hadn't paid it any attention. In a job like this you knew everyone's triggers and you gave them their space. Then again this morning the unit chief had walked in briskly and shut his office door immediately without saying a word to anyone. Morgan and the rest of the team had just assumed he had some annoying bureaucracy to deal with or a phone call with Strauss, some of the more annoying parts of the job. He'd had no reason to think anything was wrong with his boss, and yet here they were.

He wondered if Rossi - if it was Rossi - was going to say something. What age old wisdom do you bestow on a tired soul? Morgan considered swiping some of the reports off the unit chief's desk later. He'd had his turn in that chair, he knew how to do the job. If Hotch wasn't so proud he'd have already been doing so so he could be home with his son.

It was likely something with Jack. At the thought of kids Morgan's thoughts drifted back to the previous case. A deranged father who had lost his own child snapped on the anniversary of their death. His mania had let him to his late son's daycare and the team had braced themselves for the worst as they sped towards a building full of young children held hostage. By the time they got there it was too late to save the children. The unsub had chosen his fate and was going down with them. The monster had rigged the place to blow. They didn't even have time to try and recover any bodies. The only person who made it inside was Hotch and he barely got out, noticing the smell of gas just in time.

_Hotch had been inside._ He had seen the aftermath. It made more sense now as he realized that they had all been considering it a very dark, depressing silver lining that they didn't have to survey a crime scene filled with 15 small, innocent, victims. But Hotch did and nearly gotten blown up in the process. 

The room had been silent for a while save a soft sound that Morgan couldn't quite place. A rhythmic slide of a hand over fabric? Maybe Hotch was flattening his suit or drying his hands. Didn't seem like him to fidget. Maybe the other person was the fidgeter? Rubbing his own sleeves as he held his arms crossed?

"It's just bad timing." Hotch said. His voice was louder, a little more clear but still restrained and quiet. It was only for the other person and Morgan desperately wished he was anywhere but here right now. He was an unwilling intruder into a moment that belonged only to Hotch and the recipient of that whisper.

The recipient huffed, almost laughing. If you could quantify a laugh and take the smallest denomination of it that was what came out. He hoped it was well received. It was bold move to meet this kind of emotion with sarcasm. 

It must have been because Hotch continued. The sound of rubbing stopped and he could hear the distressed agent turn as he shuffled presumably to face the other. The counter creaked slightly as he leaned some weight on it.

"I know he doesn't mean it he-" Hotch breathed out again, willing himself to continue. "He's just at that age. He doesn't mean it." He repeats as if he's convincing himself. 

"It's just that every time I close my eyes-" his voice hitches and Morgan takes it as a sign that he's right about the school aftermath. "I can see it, I can smell it, I can feel how it felt to be in that room... but at least I couldn't hear anything. And now..."

Whatever Jack had said had hit too close to home it seemed, and Morgan couldn't even begin to imagine what that was like. None of them aside from JJ knew what it was like to have a child. An extension of yourself thats so vulnerable and impressionable, a face and a feeling you carry everywhere and see in every other child you came across. At least that's how JJ had described it. Morgan had asked her one night, after a case about a little blonde boy, how she didn't let it affect her.

_  
"It did. It does. It will always affect me."_

_"And you can work like that?"_

_"You have to. Because that kid has a mother somewhere that feels the same way when she looks at other children, when she sees the news talk about anything involving kids, when she hears stories about a kidnapping or rumors of a pedophile. If we're lucky we find the kid in time, we stop the bad guy. That kid goes back to his mother and she gets to release that feeling. But I don't get to release it until I get home and get to hug my own child. And when your commute is as long as ours is sometimes you just learn to live with that feeling."_

Morgan was nowhere close to having children, but since his talk with JJ the severity of that choice in a profession like theirs seemed more and more difficult. In a way he was thankful to hear from the other side, a frank admission of the terrifying truths of it is valuable knowledge for when he would cross that bridge. And in some ways Hotch and Jack were the other side of the coin, an example of how work and fatherhood coexisting could be done by two people who thought the world of each other. 

But Morgan was naiive if he didn't think Hotch struggled with those same things. He had to acknowledge that experiencing that indescribable feeling of love that parents always told you 'you wont know 'til you know' had a price to pay. To get to experience something so supposedly pure and fulfilling you had to be able to handle the pressure of its inverse. Fear, uncertainty, the potential for loss. Parenthood was about balance, people said, and even if this isn't what they meant by that it didn't make it less true.

"You know that backpack you bought him?" Hotch murmured. The listener presumably nodded. Who in the office would have bought Jack a backpack? Morgan heard a sigh and then the two men embraced, the indication being the shuffling of fabric and the sound of two people breathing out and making room for each other before breathing in the comfort they had found. The stranded agent could have sworn he also heard a small sniff, but didn't strain too hard to hear a moment he felt he participated in illegally. 

Hotch continued but Morgan didn't hear it. Not to his own credit, the sound was muffled as it was whispered into the skin of someone else. A small confession Morgan only caught the hum of, its low pitch feeling heavier by both gravitas and the gravely nature of a distressed man's vocal cords. 

"It wasn't the same backpack."

Morgan was glad he had been holding his breath. If not for his frozen shock he'd have audibly reacted to Spencer Reid's voice whispering back, countering whatever secret admission was just given him.

He couldn't help himself, he had to look. He'd guessed at the scene in front of him so far, trusting his ears and his assumptions but he truly wouldn't believe this until he saw Reid, until he saw this moment really happening. Moving slowly towards the crack along the door he breathed cautiously, as if all his tactical training had prepared him for this moment. The stakes here felt just as high as anything did out in the field.

It was Spencer. Thankfully his back was turned but Morgan recognized the tall lanky figure of his best friend, the long wild hair, the fuzzy purple sweater vest. What he didn't recognize was the way Hotch's hand gripped that sweater, white knuckling the fabric, pulling it up and almost untucking his shirt underneath. His other arm was wrapped around the younger agent, nearly circling his entire waist. Spencer had never looked so skinny, directly pressed up against a larger, stronger man who looked like he might topple him - but Spencer stood tall and looked unwavering in the way he held Hotch back.   
Hotch's face was turned into Spencer's neck, explaining the inaudible revelation. The top of his head was pointing at Morgan, his neck bent down like he had surrendered. The soothing, rhythmic sound of Spencer rubbing Hotch's back returned, and Hotch lifted his head. Morgan nearly panicked and withdrew, but Hotch's eyes were closed and Morgan remained, mesmerized and unable to look away. Hotch lifted his face just enough so that his nose rested above Spencer's ear, his mouth directly in position to send his words directly to Spencer, like it was the closest he'd ever get to telepathically delivering his every thought.

"Spencer, I know what I saw. He had the same backpack. It was covered in blood-"

"It's not." Spencer shushed him and Hotch gave in immediately, not even slightly resisting Spencer's command. It was an instruction delivered like a lullaby, comforting and concise. Spencer's hand that wasn't on Hotch's back found its way to the side of his face, combing through his hair as he gently pressed the cropped black fray it back behind his ear towards the nape of his neck. He continued to play with it as he talked.

"Jack has an absolutely one of a kind backpack. There is no other backpack like it because his backpack is customized." His hand dropped to Hotch's ear and he rubbed the soft skin of his earlobe. He continued talking as Hotch held his breath, the contact with his ear the only thing holding him to this existence.

"When we bought it we had just gone to the Spy museum. Remember when he was really into being a secret agent? He said he bought this backpack because there was a secret pocket inside. When I asked him what he was going to put inside he wouldn't tell me. About a month towards the end of last school year he spilled pasta all over it."

Hotch looked as if he was going to react and a small smile threatened to break through, but Spencer laughed through his nose and squeezed his ear. "Don't ask I'll tell you that story later. So I went to wash it and I told him he had to take everything out. When we got to the secret pocket I closed my eyes so he could open it but he said he'd let me help because I had proven I wasn't a double agent."

This time Hotch laughed, his slight smile lost in Spencer's hair. "So you've been vetted."

"It appears I have."

Hotch's grip on Spencer's sweater loosened and he dropped his arm to meet the other around his partner's waist. Spencer mirrored him, his own arms meeting stretched around the unit chiefs back, a pivot made seamlessly, like a dance they had regularly practiced. The pair looked each other in the eyes as Spencer continued his story.

"So he tells me that there is a password to open it. I obviously can't tell you what that password is because that would be a breach of security." Spencer says this with complete seriousness and Hotch falls a bit more in love. "But I can tell you that there is both a verbal clue and a physical hint inside the secret pocket."

"Should I be concerned that he seems to doubt his ability to memorize his own password? Or that it sounds like his backpack can be very easily hacked?"

"No, no this story is supposed to be uplifting. Worrying about him is the opposite of my intentions in telling you this."

"I'm sorry Agent Reid, please continue."

"The clue is "A superhero." Spencer starts. He waits for dramatic effect, assuming correctly that Hotch is picturing Spiderman or Captain America. 

"What's the hint inside?"

"Your old badge."

If Morgan weren't such a tough, macho man he'd be crying at how sweet this moment is. Or so he tells himself as he wipes the smallest evidence of softness from his eye. He's still watching from his vantage point between the hinges, long past being concern with being seen. Hotch and Reid are locked into each other and Morgan's brain can't even begin to process all this until he can get out of this stall and splash himself with some water.

Hotch was looking at Spencer with an expression that without a doubt have never graced the halls of the BAU. It spoke of an intimacy the team would have never guessed existed between this unlikely pair and Morgan knew for a fact that no one would believe him should he betray this memory of theirs. But he knew he wouldn't be telling a soul. 

Even Garcia. Maybe.

"You know the old one, where you're smiling all big for some reason even though no one in the FBI has seen you smile." As if to prove him wrong Hotch smiled at him. He looked like a different man from just minutes ago, but that man still existed and has only been temporarily placated. Morgan knew this, and as he watched the men interact he realized that Spencer knew this too. He wasn't sure how Spencer could help Hotch but he absolutely trusted that the kid was going to try, and perhaps it was just that simple.

Spencer delicately put his hands up to the sides of Hotch's face and wiped his thumbs under wet eyes. Hotch's face fit perfectly in the genius's palms. Spencer's thumbs stalled as he surveyed the dark circles present under sad brown eyes and he swallowed. It wasn't his turn to be sad right now.

"Is that all thats in there?" Hotch asked.

"No." Spencer replied, but didn't specify further. He had already said too much.

"Is this why he didn't want a new back pack this year?"

"I suppose. Though I told him I could transfer the patch if he wanted."

"The patch?"

"Oh yeah!" Spencer perked up as he remembered the whole point of his story. "Thats what makes his backpack unique. He said that a very important part of the password was you had to include your title, because 'SSA' meant that you were an agent. I asked him if he was an agent then what was his title, and he looked really sad that he didn't have one so I had a patch made that says "SSA Jack Hotchner" and I sewed it inside his pocket."

By now the two agents were less entwined, letting go of each other slowly and reluctantly as they reverted back into the versions of themselves that eventually had to walk out of here like nothing had happened. Hotch's hands still lingered on Spencer's belt, even though Spencer's had left Hotch's face as he grew more animated with the story he was telling. The man couldn't resist talking with his hands. Despite the receding intimacy, Hotch still wore a soft expression and as Spencer finished his story he hooked his fingers through the young doctor's belt loops and pulled him back in just slightly, as if to hit snooze on their return to reality. _Just five more minutes._

"It's still in there you know. Your badge." Spencer said softly, saying one thing but meaning so much more. "He could never hate you."

Hotch just kept looking at Spencer. The two men stood staring at each other for a moment of silence, and for some reason Morgan felt it necessary to turn away. This was the line. Somehow this was too private, too special for him to witness. 

It completely baffled the eavesdropper who leaned back and closed his eyes, his mind racing with implications of this conversation. How the two of them had gotten this close, what they meant to each other, how they hid it from everybody. It would almost have been easier for Morgan to process walking in on them having sex. Were they even sleeping together? Morgan suddenly pictured the way Hotch curled into the base of Reid's neck, and how slow and deliberately Reid's hands moved around Hotch's face and hair - of course they were having sex. There was no doubt in Morgan's mind that his best friend and his boss knew each other as intimately as two people could possibly know each other.

"We have to talk about this eventually." Spencer said, his voice chasing away some of the levity he had just worked so hard for. "But not here."

"I know." Hotch said, his voice small again. Just for Spencer. He cleared his throat and Morgan could practically hear him stand up tall, back to being the Hotch that would be slapping him on the wrist later for being MIA for so long. 

"I feel bad for anyone trying to take a shit right now."

Not audibly reacting to that sentence was the hardest thing Morgan had ever done in his life. The combination of Hotch making a joke, swearing, and being completely oblivious to his presence was the most ridiculous thing that'd ever happened to him.

And he'd never be able to tell anyone.


End file.
